VARIOUS ARTISTS “Exterminate All Rational Music” C92 (\\NULL|ZØNE//)

Welcome to \\NULL|ZØNE//. I hop in the oversized green pipe like an Italian plumber in overalls, a goofy hat, and a mustache and come out the other side in who knows where. No, I know where – it’s a netherworld, a miasma of hellish grotesqueries, where the outcasts of all musical scenes and genres are dumped when their use is determined to be no longer needed. I mean, heck, when there’s no longer a need for endowments for arts and humanities, as determined by our esteemed national leadership, the great unrefined still need some shore to wash up on. And they know it, too! Hey, track one by Sunwatchers is called “There Is No God and Fuck the Government” – haha, wow, that’s a spicy meat-a-ball! To stick with our Super Mario theme, Sunwatchers stomp koopas to bits and watch their turtly guts smear out all over their instruments for inspiration, then free-associate sonics to brainwaves for five straight wonderful minutes. And then for the next 87 wonderful minutes, the gang \\NULL|ZØNE// has brought together does very similar whacked out, brazen, and fully belligerent experimental/improv-y bits of decisive action, complete with mid-album power-ups. Don’t believe me about the power-ups? Doesn’t matter, I hear them. There are electronics, acoustic instruments (some nice, gnarly sax passages), musique concrete (piped-in weirdo radio frequencies), and everything in between, including an appearance by CM and CG favorite Future Ape Tapes! And as usual with these Various Artists releases, you’re bound to discover a new name or ten that you’ll have to do more research on later. For me this time around, I totally got into the aforementioned Sunwatchers, Carey, Alec Livaditis, Ramble Tamble, and Clang Quartet. But there’s so much more on here! And you gotta act fast – there are only 9 left (as of this writing, 3/16/17, probably waaaay before this posts) out of the original run of 50. You know what to do. And you’re gonna have to do it before fricking orange Bowser-man takes away any more of our arts and junk, like our cassette tapes or something equally insane…\\NULL|ZØNE// on the Bandcamps

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It should be obvious, this is a webzine we created to put cassette releases and the format of cassette itself on a pedestal. We are not doing this to be some sort of cassette snob, more-DIY-than-thou elitists or anything. We are doing it because all the formats that sound can be presented on are exciting and provide unique ways of shaping the listeners experience... so it is a shame that any one of these formats would fall by the wayside. Cassettes provide a listening experience that is similar to vinyl because of the intermission/moment of pause created by changing sides of the tape, but can be of almost any length between 30 seconds a side to an hour. Tapes can also be listened to in a car or while jogging.While today this format helps keep the home label alive, its almost a dream to remember that once every musician from Michael Jackson to REM had their releases on cassette. Cassettes were a legitimate format, not just for the DIY underground. Maybe we (thats you too) are the last guardians of this format. Maybe someone, someday will popularize cassettes again. In the meantime we keep the reels turning. A little offering because at least there are a few of you that know there is more than one god of this land.